Some Days....................

Some days, you're the cat and some days, you're the cat litter.

Today, I am the litter.

You know that new health insurance I signed up for last year?  It gives me 2 free dental cleanings, x-rays and check-up and paid $500.00 for my crown.  It pays $200.00 toward a new pair of glasses that I need.  Great.  Right?

I went to my physical therapy session today--my first one--and found I'd have to pay a $30.00 co-pay for every visit.  3 visits a week, for 6 weeks.  

I had to pay a $45.00 co-pay both times I went to the dermatologist.

My prescriptions used to be free for generic, now they are $2.50, none generic is $6.00.

Plus the $200.00 I owe the hospital and the $219.00 I owe the ambulance company.

Yes--the premium is only $20.00 a month, but...............................


and you can bet, next November, I will be going back on Medicare with a supplemental insurance.  If I had stayed on what I had--ALL my PT would have been covered, as well as the hospital and ambulance, dermatologist and any other procedures I needed.
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Other than that--the grape jelly in the Baltimore Oriole feeder was frozen this morning!!!
The squirrels apparently are illegals from Mexico as they now seem to like the hot pepper sauce that I put in the bird seed.  So--to counteract that, I made a squirrel feeder and filled it with corn and peanuts.  The Chipmunks, Blue Jays, Woodpeckers and Nuthatches like it as well.

My blood pressure is still quite high most of the day.

For some reason, Maggie the cat, yakked up on the carpet.  Not a fur ball, just food.  ARGGH!

My grass is so long that I thought I saw a Python slither through the back yard today.  I cannot afford to get it mowed every week!

I thought the dermatologist look off a thin slice of skin for biopsy--the dang spot still hurts--and today I looked and I have a hole in my leg!!  Apparently he took out a plug of tissue and it has to heal from the inside out?  I put some neosporin and a band-aid on it because it rubs against my pant leg and hurts.

Pammie didn't make it over this week with Evan.

My garbage pail is breaking around the top and one wheel broke off.


Today, I am the litter!!!  I feel like I have been shat upon!

Fickle

Fickle--the weather that is.  Near 80 yesterday, only up to 51 today.  I woke up early and was so cold---probably why I woke up.  The bedroom window was open a bit and I closed it and snuggled back in bed, but couldn't recapture sleep.

I got up and went into the living room to turn the thermostat from "off" back to "heat" and my sweet furnace came on and had us warmed up to 71 in no time.

Decided that I should stay up, so I jumped on the computer for a couple of hours.

After my Soap, I traveled into Brighton to get my hair cut.  It was way too long.  Now, it's way too short.  It should be just about perfect in two weeks.  That perfection will last perhaps a day or two and then--it will be unruly and way too long again.  ARGGH!

On my way to the salon, I passed the Meijer gas station and noticed gas was $ 2.29 a gallon.  I was a bit less than half full, so on the way back home--exactly 38 minutes later, I stopped in at that gas station.  Gas was now $2.55 a gallon.  I had already determined I was only going to put $20.00 in, but still--20.00 at $2.29 a gallon would have filled it up.  I get grumpy when things like this happen and just want to slap someone--anyone.  ARGGH!

I also had to pick up some milk--I have been out for nearly a week and I miss my warm cocoa in the morning.  They did not have my fat free/skim milk--only regular full strength milk.  Oh well--it will be good for me.

I came home, snuggled into my recliner and just crocheted the rest of the afternoon.

Today was gray, cold, sprinkly with a chilly wind, which to me equals, a perfect day to snuggle in and crochet or cross stitch or read.

Maybe tomorrow will be better?

Happy Mother's Day To Me

I got myself a Mother's Day present.

This is the home made one I had been using.

On Friday, a female Baltimore Oriole came to visit.

The first one I have ever seen 

I put up the new feeder, hoping they would like it and...

THEY DID!!

 

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Doubling up on the new BP med.  Are you all tired of hearing about my ongoing battle with high blood pressure?  I know I am!  The day before my AFib incident, my BP was 117/62.  It has been that way for many years.  I took BP meds and they worked fine.  Then the hospital changed up my meds.  Then when I got home, they didn't work, so the doc added some more.  I was severely allergic to one of them and stopped taking it, so he added yet another new one.  Last Thursday, when my BP was 187/65 in his office, he doubled that new med.  It seems to be working.  At least today it is working.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

This week my new blood thinner med seems to be working also, as I know have a couple of Senior Tattoos.  That's what someone called the purple bruises that come to the surface of my thin skin, whenever I accidentally hit my wrist on the doorway.  I am a real clutch, so I expect to acquire more of these Senior Tattoos as I move through life.  I hate them!  They make me look like an old person--which I might be, but I have never thought of myself as old---and therein lies the problem with my upset over having to visit the doc every two weeks and having to check my BP three times a day!

I am having too admit I am old and it is really making me quite angry and sad!
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After her Yoga class, Karen took me out for brunch Saturday morning.  She was busy with her own kids on Mother's Day.  Her eldest, Helene, has completed her Master's degree at UCLA and is now home, safe and sound..interviewing for jobs.  I hope she gets the job in Michigan and not the one in Washington, DC!

Lenie's home and her brother Marcus has something growing on his face.

Karen and I were talking about friends.  She said that she had tried to set up a quick get together with some old friends she hasn't seem in a couple of years and one excuse came in after another, so she just forgot about it.  She said, "Everyone is so busy, as am I, but they couldn't seem to find a couple  hours over a weekend to get together.  I miss my friends.  In fact, they don't even exist anymore in my life."

I told Karen I felt the same way.  I miss my friends too.  Sure, I have "friends".  The girls I went to school with--I see them once a month.  Pearl is a friend, I can see her everyday.  What I miss most of all are FRIENDS!!!  That person I have history with.  The one that knew everything about me, good and bad, and would call me out when I was being an idiot, cry with me when I was sad.  That kind of friend.  Soul mate?

Karen's are too busy.  Most of mine are dead!
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I went back to the dermatologist on Thursday afternoon.  He came into the room, "Well the good news is the biopsy on that spot on your leg is fine."

"Of course it is!  I told you it would be."  (I was grumpy)

"I'm sorry you had to go through that.  I am only doing my job and had to check it."

"Yes, I suppose.  Well, because you put me through that torture, can you do me one favor and blast this age spot on my face?"

"Sure.  It's the least I can do."

So he grabbed the pressurized nitrogen and blasted away.  At least I got something good out of the visit to secure my vanity.  I think he only did the biopsy to get money from my insurance company.  I have other "spots" that look far worse than that tiny pimple on the back of my calf!
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I got Mother's Day cards from Pam and Karen, also $30.00--which will go to the buying of annuals for my porch planters.  Did I get a card from Jen?  Did I expect to get a card from Jen?  No to both those questions.  I did get an e-mail from her asking me if I wanted the sewing machine back that I had given her.  They are "staging" their home for sale.  ARGGH!

Did I get a card or a phone call from my son?  You've got to be kidding, right?

HOWEVER--I will get to see Pam and little Evan this week.  Evan picked a very tall dandelion out of their yard.  He handed it to Pam and said, "This is for Mimi because it is tall like Mimi is."  So she is bringing him over either Monday or Tuesday morning.   
<tears--he remembers me!>

Something wonderful that was delivered on Saturday afternoon--from my "daughter" Chris.

Cutest ever?  I'm thinking, when the flowers are done, that cute little watering can will be on my porch filled with some annuals!

Now Chris is one of those FRIENDS that I have shared a WHOLE lot of my emotions/feelings with!! She witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly of my life and still loves me!!

I am very grateful and blessed.

Mother's Day

I was a career Mom

This was my full time job for 31 years

Best job I ever had

Snarl

Woke up to a beautiful day.  

Feeling great!

So glad to see all my birds have migrated back.

This gorgeous triple Tulip opened up.

Wildlife arrived at:5:00

BP at 7:00
197/68 

Gardens

Nice rain today--my gardens needed it.

Gardens in my life--

When I lived here:   July 1957

All I had were those two planter boxes my Mother made for me.


Then I moved here:     August 1959

and had this spindly one for the first couple of years. I was always pregnant (3 kids in 4 years) so there was little time for flower gardening.  Although I did have a big vegetable garden in back.


Then I moved here:    1967-1988

and put a perennial garden all along the frontage--to the right of the Tulip tree, and up the side toward the house.  A cottage garden up by the back porch, a spring bulb garden all along that side of the house and an enormous vegetable garden to the left of the driveway/lawn.

The perennials I got were from the gardens of my great grandma, grandma and mother.

Then, I moved here:  and took roots from my garden with me.                        1989

...and although I had my gardens started, I did not live here long enough to see them flouish.

Then, I moved here:  and took roots from the upper gardens with me.         1992-2003

I lived here for 12 years, so I had a lot of time to plant gardens and watch them grow into beautiful spaces.

Then, I moved here:     2003-present

As you can see, there wasn't a flower garden in sight.  I brought roots from my previous garden with me.

I have been here for 12 years and:

                                                  

2007

My "Momma" Iris, that my Mother planted in her garden in 1968, is in my front garden.

This Iris, at one time, bloomed in my grandmother's garden  back in the late 50's, is in my front garden.

A Lemon Lily my mother had in the early 50's.

This is the only perennial I had at my first house.

When I moved to my Grandma's farm, I took a clump of roots with me, and is in my front garden.

My little woodland garden to the side of my porch.
All plants came from the woods where I used to live.
From the same plants of the wildflowers I picked as a child.

All the perennials live on at my "now" home base. About all I do now is buy and plant annuals in my porch planters.                                             2014

What I have tried to portray in this post is.......I have to have my gardens, wherever I live.  I have to have my ancestor's plants in my gardens, to make wherever I have lived, feel like home.

I have had enormous gardens that took an hour or so out of each of my days to maintain.  I loved it.  I could relax and think while I gardened.

Now--I can do it no longer, but.........my plants are here, in a smaller format.

May 3, 2015

  

Good Stuff. Sad Stuff. Life Stuff.

I had to run up to Wal-Mart yesterday to get two prescriptions picked-up.  On the way home, I stopped at the car wash.  I was the last vehicle in a 5 car line-up and when I got in, the kids did an extra scrub with the brush and mop.  I felt like I had received an unexpected perk.

Not bad looking for a 17 year old car.  Eh?

I did a walk about to see how the spring flowers are doing.  Front garden doing well--on the way out, but lily plants coming on strong so soon will have more beautiful flowers.

Woodland flowers on left of my side garden, coming on strong.

May Apples, Trilliums, Violets.  

Jack-In-The-Pulpit not up as yet. 

Karen called and we chatted for a bit,  Oldest grand daughter Helene, has moved from LA back to Arizona for a week.  She has completed her Master's at UCLA and is back in AZ visiting friends.  Her Dad is flying out today to help her drive back to Michigan.  She already has a job interview with her Dad's company, and if she gets the position, will be moving to D.C. to work.

Maddie will be coming back from Guatemala on July 1st.  She HAS to come back, as she already had renewed her Visa for another 3 month stay.  It's a good thing she HAS to come home, or I don't think she'd ever leave there.  She will be going into a nursing program at a local college.  Nursing?  We haven't had a nurse in our family for 90+ years!  She wants to get her degree so she can go back and work at the clinic where she's been in Guatemala.

Pammie called in the late afternoon.  In our conversation, I asked if she had talked to Karen lately and she said, "Yes.  I saw her at Elise' volleyball game the other night."  I don't think she realized how much her words hurt me.

A big lump in my throat and tears started.  I thought perhaps things were improving with Jen, but apparently not.  Maybe it's her husband that can't stand for me to be in his line of sight?

They are going to be moving to NJ.  Do you know how much it would mean to me to be able to attend a volleyball game or band concert to see Elise perform? 

How much it would mean to go watch Little Boy play Soccer or Big Boy do his Karate thing?  To even be able to watch the 3 year old playing at his house?

If I knew where and when these events took place, I would go--sneak in and sit on the other side of the gym, just to see them.  I wouldn't go anywhere near Jen or her husband---I just want to see the kids...before they leave my life entirely.

Called my little sister as I haven't seen or heard from her since the hospital visit.  She was just returning from an Emmaus retreat weekend at a big church in Flint.  I hope I can get out to The Farm this week.

In the meantime--my "daughter" Chris is having me test a crochet pattern for her.  I am doing an XL Twin bed crocheted cover/blanket for her.  I am keeping notes on how many stitches, the size, the number of skeins, any changes in her pattern.  Can you believe it?  She is paying me to sit on my skinny behind, in my recliner, watching TV and crocheting.   It doesn't get much better than that!!!

Thankfully for Chris.  I don't know what I would do without her in my life.  She is always so loving and supportive to me.  Much more caring than any of my "real" kids!